How long until you liked the Mac?
Here's a question. How long did it take you to figure out that there was something special from the time you started using it? Was it in a couple of days or over months?
Here's my experience. I used only DOS and its command line in high school. I used Windows 3.1 a little bit and an SGI Irix which had a GUI. So I had some experience using the GUI. Then in 1994 I got a job in an office at college and we used Macs. It only took one or two days before I thought the Mac was really intriguing. I remember thinking to myself that the Mac seems to present just the right amount of information at the right time. When you went to save something everything was very neatly organizing. It was easy to choose a different printer and System 7 had a friendly, handsome look to it. So it only took a couple of days for me to really like the Mac, but I didn't have much Windows experience.
But despite liking the Mac in 1995 I got a PC as a Christmas present. I didn't buy a Mac until two years later and there are many things you can like at one point but easily forget about.
I'm interested in other people's experiences because I'm wondering if the Mac is genereally an acquired taste or an instant attraction. This could shed light on how to get people to buy more Macs.
Here's my experience. I used only DOS and its command line in high school. I used Windows 3.1 a little bit and an SGI Irix which had a GUI. So I had some experience using the GUI. Then in 1994 I got a job in an office at college and we used Macs. It only took one or two days before I thought the Mac was really intriguing. I remember thinking to myself that the Mac seems to present just the right amount of information at the right time. When you went to save something everything was very neatly organizing. It was easy to choose a different printer and System 7 had a friendly, handsome look to it. So it only took a couple of days for me to really like the Mac, but I didn't have much Windows experience.
But despite liking the Mac in 1995 I got a PC as a Christmas present. I didn't buy a Mac until two years later and there are many things you can like at one point but easily forget about.
I'm interested in other people's experiences because I'm wondering if the Mac is genereally an acquired taste or an instant attraction. This could shed light on how to get people to buy more Macs.
Comments
then we got one at home (we also had an even older apple computer... i dont remember the name... but it was REALLY old... I dont even remember ever seeing pictures of it online... I wonder if i still have it) and I started a collection of international flags that I made in print shop and copied from an encyclopedia.
My friend also just got an LC III when the school got LC IIs played Civilization and sim city on the IIs at school and a better oregon trail on my friend's LC III
it all came together when i got my own computer tho... a Performa 630 CD in 4th grade
The salesman wanted me to get a Packard Bell (dell?) but I told him i wanted to be able to use Hypercard... My first big software purchase... of course i haven't used it since 6th grade when we did a report on the mongols... that was fun, especially helping out my classmates on how to use the program.
wow that was a long time ago... :sniff:
that ][GS was a really great computer... you know it had a modem port? (just another serial port)
I wonder if i can still play those games....
apart from those macs of the 1980s i had used.. os x? it hit me.
and from tomorrow i will have mac only. peecee is gone, thus linux will be fink only..
how long did it take to like a mac?
how long does it take to fall in love at first sight? (with os x)
*Used it everyday! Never turned it off (apart from the odd reboot) either
I've been hooked ever since!
I couldn't believe it when my mom replaced her IIcx with a PowerMac 7100, and my dad replaced the SE/30 with a Quadra 610... all of a sudden, in 1995 or something, I had my very own computer and so did my brother. I got my very own color computer!
I've owned eleven computers since then... right now I own three (G4 tower, LC III+, and PowerBook 3400).
EDIT: Cosmic Ozmo! I remember that! I remember eventually discovering everything there was to do in that game... I had another one called Manhole that was similar to Cosmic Ozmo but not quite as fun. I also spent a lot of time on Shufflepuck Cafe, I got really good at that game.
[ 12-13-2002: Message edited by: Luca Rescigno ]</p>
But even after Windows 95 I found the mac lots more intuitive, and whenever I jumped on a Windows box I always felt really restricted. That's why I continue to use a mac... it lets me do exactly what I want, and provides me with all the tools to do so. I'd say there are only two reasons I've never switched over to Windows at this point in time: Mac OS X and BBEdit.
Initially i bought the mac becos of the cool hardware. But i only need 3 days to fall in love with OS X. OS X really rocks!!
My only low point in the usuage of my mac comes when that stupid Steve Jobs announced that itools will no longer be free....
I had started with a Commodore-64, moved up to a DOS machine, then a Windows 3.1 386. But, I was about to head off to college, so I was in the market for a new PC. 486's were the top of the line PCs, so I was planning on getting one. But... the college I had chosen was primarily Mac based.
I'll admit, I was one of those people who thought Macs were toys. But, I grit my teeth and picked up a Mac book at the local library, to be familiar with the machines at the school.
I was shocked. What I was reading was how a computer should work. I was used to command lines, Program Groups and 8.3 filenames. But here was a system where applications could be dragged anywhere. Files could have a whopping 32 characters, with no restrictions! I could make use of folders instead of directories, and they would be drag 'n drop!
We went out shopping soon thereafter, and I convinced my folks to let me get a Performa 476. I didn't really regret it, since I couldn't afford one of the new Powermac 6100s at the time. Ever since, I've been a Mac fan. I still use PCs from time to time, but the Mac is where I come to get things done.
EDIT: Hey, speaking of Tetris, I remember playing Tetris on the IIGS. It came in an orange box with Tetris written in Russian on the front. At the time, I thought the background graphics were beautiful, but in retrospect they were terrible. And my parents ordered us this computer "magazine" for kids called Microzine, which came on a floppy disk every two months or so and was filled with educational games.
What a sad introduction to computer gaming. Of course, now I play Tetris and Minesweeper on my Palm, so it's only cutting-edge games for me.
Do ignore me if I've droned on too long, but someone mentioned the Apple II and it got me all nostalgic.
EDIT #2: OOH, OOH, OOH! And then there was an educational game called StickBear ABC's! Great game, great game. See, the premise was VERY clever: you'd press a letter, and a picture dealing with a word that started with that letter would come up. You know the guy who came up with THAT one is rich.
[ 12-14-2002: Message edited by: Apple Fuji ]</p>
I convinced my mom to buy an 8500 is 97 or so. maybe it was 96. . . I forget. I started doing graphics and 3D modeling on it, mainly models of airplanes. Then I diversified to general graphics. Now I write low-level code.
I own these computers:
Mega-Hacked 7500
Yosemite 400, 256MB - currently possessed by my mother.
Powerbook G4/500 - currently possessed by my mother
Powerbook G4/1000
Two semi-functional PC notebooks.
I also possess a RevD iMac that is owned by a guy who lives upstairs.
the first computer i ever had that i didn't build from parts
i made sure that it had a 30 day money back garuntee
because i couldn't get the idea of a powerbook out of my head
on the last day of the garuntee i drove to the manufacturer and returned it in person
they'd never had someone return a product in person before
at first they refused to take it
but i got my money and bought a powerbook and have been a mac user ever since
I was attending a full time electronics course and was using an Olivetti PC with DOS to type up projects when I came accross a Macintosh 128K with mono screen/floppy drive and original apple dot matrix printer languishing in a corner of one of the labs.
On my breaks I would sit at this thing and boot up the OS from a floppy (I still have a copy of that OS on floppy somewhere, wonder if I could use it now
I can remember thinking at the time "Wow! This little computer is really easy to use and streets ahead of the other PCs I'm using and the software and interface is awesome!)
After a few weeks I was using the Macintosh to type up all my projects with my own artwork courtesy of MacPaint and I really fell in love with Mac from then.
I finished the course and never saw a Mac again for years, till time came when I decided to buy a computer for myself to use at home, so, remembering the little Mac and how good it was there was no hesitation in buying an iMac.
Software and hardware get better as the years go by, but one thing is constant, the great user experience you get from working on a Mac.
Just my $0.02
I convinced my mom to buy what we could afford which was a C64. For my 8th grade graduation, I bought a $350 device called a disk drive.
I was on the Commodore train for quite a while. I kept my C64 and took it with me to college. In 1988 it finally died and briefly I bought another C64 to replace it. (They were about $100 at Target back then-- and they think $499 PC's are cheap)
However in 1988 a friend of mine had bought an Amiga 1000. That machine was amazing in my book. When I decided not to keep the C64, I took some of my student loan money and bought an Amiga 500. Eventually I added extra memory (1 meg baby) and a second disk drive and a MIDI interface.
I used that machine for 3 years, but the MIDI software on the Amiga was lacking. I had TONS of games available, but I could not get the productivity I wanted. (sound familiar?) I had a friend who used Vision with a Mac SE/30 and it was amazing. It was profoundly easy to use.
So in 1991, I traded away 4094 colors and stereo 8 bit sound for a Mac Classic II with 4 megs of RAM and a 40 gig HD. It was about $1200 with student discount. That was when I truly started loving the Mac. I used Zterm post to all the BBS'es around during that time. It astonished me that most PC term programs didn't even have a true copy and paste ability. Likewise word processing, DTP, MIDI, music notation, you name it were all a dream on the Mac.
I used that machine all through college. I graduated and used it through about 1995. I got married and in 1995 bought a new Performa 6200 with monitor. (Road Apple)
I managed to sell it a year later and bought a close-out SuperMac c600.
Nowadays I have a G4/450, Powerbook 500, and about 10 old rescued Macs in the garage.
Nick